Composite video signals, commonly used in video broadcasts or transmissions, contain a brightness signal (luminance, luma or Y) and a color signal (chrominance, chroma or C), where the color signal is modulated into a color sub-carrier and added to the brightness signal prior to transmission. To effectuate demodulation of the color sub-carrier upon reception, the composite video signal provides a color burst during each horizontal blanking period, where each color burst is several cycles of the unmodulated color sub-carrier comprising frequency, amplitude, and phase reference information.
Since color picture quality depends upon the color burst, any corruption in the color burst can cause undesirable results when the video signal is displayed. Traditional methods of detecting the color burst corruption heavily rely on the overall amplitude of the color burst. The situation exists, however, where the color burst is within a predetermined amplitude range, but the color burst phase is corrupted. Thus the traditional methods allow the corrupted color burst to go undetected, and the color picture quality deteriorates as a result.
Accordingly, a need remains for a system and method for adaptive filtering of color burst phase information that results in an improved color picture produced under all signal conditions.